As a 2007 UCLA Research study on Ready, Set, Read! has proven, our program works!

Did you know… Ready, Set, Read!
addresses this by…		 Research shows… Source
Future reading ability is influenced by preschool vocabulary development Targeting families with pre-kindergarten children Children who begin school with weaker language skills are less successful academically throughout their school careers than those who begin school with strong language skills. Home rather than school determines the size of vocabulary by end of the 2nd grade. Entwisle, Alexander, & Olson, 1997; Loban, 1976 Biemiller, 2006; Morrison, Connor, & Bachman, 2006
There is a large disparity in preschool vocabulary development across different family economic environments Working with underserved families to raise the number of words per hour heard during early childhood through regular family reading Words per hour, as heard by average child at age 4:
Welfare: 616
Working class: 1,251 (2 times more)
Professional: 2,153 (3.5 times more)
The cumulative effect over 4 years: the average child from a welfare family hears 13 million fewer words than one from a working family, and 30 million fewer words than one from a professional family		 Hart & Risley, 2003
Shared book reading directly helps develop a child’s vocabulary Emphasizing the role of the family in building the child’s vocabulary and using books as the mechanism for developing vocabulary Training the parents of young children to establish regular family reading activities is important. The frequency of story reading in the home at 24 months can predict children’s language ability at 2.5 and 4.5 years. Crain-Thoreson & Dale (1992)
It is important to have a variety of literacy materials accessible and available to children Establishing lending libraries in the children’s classroom The availability of literacy materials present was highly correlated with how involved children were with the literacy materials. Farran, Aydogan, Kang and Lipsey (2006)
Newness of books have an impact Furnishing the lending libraries with children’s books that are new, not second hand Providing new books, rather than second-hand ones, communicates to parents the high value placed on reading Needlman, Klass, and Zuckerman (2006)

After a Ready, Set, Read! workshop:

  • More than 90% of parents understood the connection between reading and their children’s future success
  • Parents confidence and mastery of techniques for reading to their children improved
  • Parents left workshops with at least one or more valuable strategies or beliefs about reading to their children
  • 97% of 221 survey respondents commented that they learned something new during the parent workshop

Click here to see the full UCLA Research study.